Created Equal cites First Amendment rights for protest

Fountain Square will bear witness on July 11 to an
explicit anti-abortion video as part of a Midwest tour by Created Equal,
a Columbus-based anti-abortion group that describes itself as “a social
action movement seeking to end the greatest human rights injustice of
our time.”

The “graphic abortion video,” as the group calls it,
utilizes images familiar to anyone who regularly passes by protests outside of Planned
Parenthood clinics: bloodied fetuses, separated fetal limbs and other
images that are meant to link fetuses to defenseless, dismembered
babies.

Mark Harrington, executive director of Created Equal, says the display is necessary to grab people’s attention.

“Unfortunately, it’s required. This type of message has to
be strong because of the apathy in our culture to issues like abortion
and injustices like this,” he says.

Abortion-rights advocates have taken steps to stop Created Equal, with some signing a MoveOn.org petition to convince 3CDC, which manages events on Fountain Square, to pull its permit for the event.

“It is time to tell Created Equal that they are not
permitted to show graphic abortion footage on public space,” the
petition reads. “Fountain Square is a family friendly public space and
such footage is not appropriate in this venue. Their viewing date is
Thursday, July 11, 2013, stop this from going forward.”

Harrington says groups like MoveOn.org are attacking his
First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. He argues political
speech, such as his display, is completely protected by the U.S.
Constitution.

“If they wanted to come out and show bloody images of
women who had used coat hangers for abortions … it’s protected under
the First Amendment,” Harrington says. “We would defend their right to
do so. I would never circulate a petition to stop them.”

In general, the U.S. Supreme Court has been supportive of
free speech as long as it’s politically motivated, with the notable
exceptions of sexual content and airwave broadcasts.

Still, the Supreme Court on June 10 refused to consider
overturning an injunction from the Colorado Court of Appeals that’s
preventing an anti-abortion group from displaying graphic images outside
of a Denver church. The Colorado court argued that the images were too
“gruesome” and barred their display in areas where they might disturb
children. Keeping with tradition, the Supreme Court gave no reasons for
declining to hear the case.

For those who are genuinely offended by the graphic nature
of the images and not just obstructing the organization’s anti-abortion
message, Harrington says the message is worth the downsides: “I would urge them to
be equally if not more concerned for the children that are dying and
not simply for their own children, who might be disturbed by this.”

Created Equal is against abortion in most contexts, with
the sole exception of a situation in which the mother’s life is
undoubtedly in danger.

“You do the best you can to save both. When you can’t save both, you got to save one,” Harrington says.

Thursday’s event will take place less than two weeks after
Gov. John Kasich signed a two-year state budget that limits access to
legal abortions, among other changes to school funding and taxes. CityBeat analyzed the state budget in further detail here.

State budget limits access to legal abortions through various changes

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald is urging
a coalition effort to begin a long, complicated petitioning process
that could repeal some of the anti-abortion measures in the recently approved two-year state budget.

If the petitioning process is successful, it would force
the Ohio General Assembly to consider repealing aspects of the budget that don’t involve appropriations of money. If the General Assembly changes, rejects or
ignores the repeal proposal, it could be put on the ballot in November 2014.

Speaking at a press conference Thursday, FitzGerald also
questioned the constitutionality of some of the anti-abortion measures, particularly
those that require doctors give certain medical information regarding
abortions and restrict publicly funded rape crisis centers from
discussing abortion as a viable option. He said such rules might violate
free speech rights.

The state budget effectively defunds contraceptive care
and other non-abortion services at various family planning clinics,
including Planned Parenthood. It also makes it more difficult for
abortion clinics to establish mandatory patient transfer agreements with
hospitals.

The budget provides separate federal funding to crisis
pregnancy centers, which act as the pro-abstinence, anti-abortion
alternatives to comprehensive clinics like Planned Parenthood.

The budget also gives money to rape crisis centers, but
centers that take public funding are barred from discussing abortion as a
viable option with rape victims.

Days before the budget’s passage, Republican legislators
also added an amendment that forces women to get an ultrasound prior to
getting an abortion. As part of the amendment, doctors are required
to inform the patient if a heartbeat is detected during the
ultrasound and provide an estimate of the fetus’s chances of making it to birth.

FitzGerald, who’s currently Cuyahoga County executive,
plans to run against Republican Gov. John Kasich in 2014.

Kasich signed the
controversial state budget with the anti-abortion measures on June 30,
despite calls for the governor to use his line-item veto powers — a
move that would have kept the rest of the budget in place but
repealed the anti-abortion provisions.

Plan also cuts taxes for businesses, restores some education funding

In a party line 23-10 vote today, the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate approved a $61 billion budget plan for fiscal years
2014 and 2015 that takes multiple measures against legal
abortions, aims to cut taxes for small businesses and partly restores education funding cut in the previous 2012-2013 budget.

The budget plan gives a large amount of attention to
social issues, particularly abortion. Most recently, the Ohio Senate added an amendment that could be used by the director of the Ohio Department of Health to close down abortion clinics.

The amendment bans abortion clinics from establishing transfer agreements with public hospitals, forcing the clinics to make such agreements with private hospitals,
which are often religious and could refuse to deal with abortion clinics. Under the amendment, if the clinics can’t reach a transfer agreement, the state health director is given the power to shut them down.

Abortion rights groups claim the amendment will likely be used to shut down abortion clinics or force them to dissolve their abortion services.

The bill also makes changes to family services funding
that effectively defund Planned Parenthood, a family planning services
provider that is often criticized by conservatives for offering abortion
services, even though it does so exclusively through private donations.

The bill also redirects some federal Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families funds to crisis pregnancy centers, which
effectively act as the anti-abortion alternative to comprehensive family
planning service providers like Planned Parenthood.

The changes continue a conservative push on social issues that began in the Ohio House budget (“The Chastity Bunch,” issue of April 24).

Supporters praise the bill for “protecting life” and promoting “chastity” and “abstinence,” but critics are pushing back.

“Today the Ohio Senate turned its back on the health care needs of Ohio’s women and paved the way for family planning centers and abortion clinics to be closed across the state. If Gov. (John) Kasich doesn’t remove these provisions from the budget, the unintended pregnancy rate will rise, cancer will go undetected and women who need abortion care will not have safe, legal facilities to turn to in some communities,” said
Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, in a
statement. “This budget will put the lives of thousands of Ohio women at risk if Gov. Kasich fails to line-item veto these dangerous measures.”

The Ohio Senate plan also scraps Ohio House plans to
cut income taxes for all Ohioans by 7 percent and instead aims to cut
taxes for small businesses by 50 percent.

Republicans claim the tax cut will help small businesses,
which they call the state’s “job creators.” But conservative and liberal
groups have criticized the plan.

In an analysis, Policy Matters Ohio,
a left-leaning policy think tank, claimed the tax cut will
inadvertently benefit “affluent passive investors” and “partners in law
firms and other partnerships.”

Given that, Zach Schiller, research director at Policy Matters, says the plan will do little for Ohio’s economy.

“The fastest growing small businesses are not making money
because they’re investing heavily in their operations — in marketing,
research and sales,” Schiller says. “So if they’re making anything,
they’re investing it by and large in the business, so they’re not likely
to be able to benefit very much from this.”

He adds, “Meanwhile, you’re going to have passive
investors who have no role in adding employees and partners in law
firms, architecture firms, accounting firms and other kinds of
professional organizations who will personally benefit from this in a
way that I think is unlikely to generate more employment.”

Instead of focusing on tax cuts, Schiller argues the state
should be increasing direct investments, particularly in education
and human services.

“This is bad policy, and many supporters are errantly
pushing it under the guise of putting more money in the hands of
‘job-creators.’ But this is based on a flawed understanding of what
creates jobs,” wrote Scott Drenkard of the Tax Foundation. “The
businesses that actually create jobs are not small businesses or big
businesses; they are businesses that are growing. And that type of
business is virtually impossible to target with a tax incentive.”

The budget plan restores about $717 million in
education funding, but that’s not enough to outweigh the $1.8 billion in education funding
that was cut in the 2012-2013 budget, which Kasich and the
Republican-controlled legislature approved in 2011.

The education funding increases will disproportionately favor the state’s property-wealthiest districts —
effectively giving the biggest funding increases to school districts
that can already afford to raise more money by leveraging high local
property values.

Stephen Dyer, an education policy fellow at the left-leaning Innovation Ohio, captured the disproportionate funding increases in chart form in a blog post:

The chart shows only 15 percent of funding increases will go to the property-poorest one-third of school districts, while a vast majority of the increases will go to the property-wealthiest one-third.

Health care advocates were also disappointed to see the
Ohio Senate pass on a federally funded Medicaid expansion, which would
allow anyone at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level —
$15,856 for a single-person household and $32,499 for a family of four — to enroll in the government-backed health care program.

Kasich proposed expanding Medicaid in his original budget plan (“Smoke and Mirrors,” issue of Feb. 20), but Ohio legislators are skeptical of the expansion’s consequences.

As part of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), the
Medicaid expansion would be fully financed by the federal government for
the first three years. After that, federal payments would be phased
down to capture 90 percent of the expansion, where federal funding would
permanently remain.

Republican legislators, backed by Republican State
Treasurer Josh Mandel, are skeptical the federal government can afford
the expansion. There’s no historical precedent for the federal
government failing to meet its obligations to Medicaid, but
Republican legislators argue there’s also no historical precedent for
the federal government backing such large Medicaid expansions across the
nation.

The budget also fails to restore local government funding cuts that have been carried out during Kasich’s time in office. In comparison to fiscal years 2010 and 2011, local governments are receiving about 50 percent less aid from the state, leading to $22.2 million less funds for Cincinnati on an annual basis (“Enemy of the State,” issue of March 20).

When asked to explain the various cuts to education and local government funding in the 2012-2013 budget, Kasich spokesperson Rob Nichols told CityBeat in September 2012, “The reality is we walked into an $8 billion budget deficit. … We had to fix that.”

The Ohio legislature and Kasich must agree on a budget plan in time for a June 30 deadline.

Measure would ban abortion as early as six weeks after conception

Ohio legislators today
reintroduced a bill that would ban abortions in the state as early as six weeks after
conception, even as questions remain about the proposal’s
constitutionality.

The bill has been dubbed the “heartbeat bill” because it prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

In the past, some of Ohio’s anti-abortion groups,
including Ohio Right to Life, raised concerns about the heartbeat bill
because they said it could lead to legal challenges that would endanger
the anti-abortion movement.

So far, Ohio Right to Life’s concerns might be proving true in North Dakota. A federal judge on July 22 blocked a similar law in that state after deeming it unconstitutional.

“The United States Supreme
Court has unequivocally said that no state may deprive a woman of the
choice to terminate her pregnancy at a point prior to viability,” wrote
U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland, who was appointed to the District of
North Dakota seat by former President George W. Bush in 2002.

Health experts generally agree viability is not reached until 24 weeks into the pregnancy.

When contacted earlier today, Ohio Right to Life said it’s not providing comment on the bill yet.

Abortion-rights advocates are already standing against the proposal,
which they call “the heartless bill” and an attack on women’s rights.

“Here we go again,” says Kellie Copeland, executive
director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio. “A month after Gov. Kasich signed one of the
worst anti-choice bills in the nation that is already closing abortion
facilities, you’ve got this group coming back and saying, ‘No, no, no,
that’s not good enough. You have to outlaw abortion before women even
know they’re pregnant.’ ”

Forty of 99 legislators in the Ohio House have signed onto the bill, according to The Associated Press.
The Ohio Senate majority caucus and Gov. John Kasich have so far
declined to comment on the bill when asked by various reporters.

In June, the Republican-controlled General Assembly and Kasich passed a two-year state budget
that imposes regulatory hurdles that make it more difficult
to get an abortion in Ohio and have already forced various abortion
clinics to shut down in Ohio.

Bill could force doctors to give medically incorrect information

An Ohio House bill introduced June 11 would add more
restrictions to obtaining a legal abortion in Ohio, and some of the
requirements may force doctors to provide medically inaccurate
information.

With an exception for medical emergencies but not rape or incest, House Bill 200 would increase the waiting period on abortions from 24 to 48 hours.

The bill would also force doctors to give patients, verbally and in writing, a slew of warnings 48 hours before an abortion procedure.

Among the requirements, doctors would have to explain
medical risks that the legislation claims are associated with abortion,
including infection, hemorrhage, cervical or uterine perforation,
infertility, risks to subsequent pregnancies and the increased risk of
breast cancer.

The bill would also require doctors to provide a
description of fetal development with colored photographs
and “the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the
embryo or fetus at that age.”

As part of the bill, pregnant women seeking an abortion
would be forced to get an ultrasound two days before a procedure. During
the process, doctors would have to provide a verbal description
of the ultrasound, including whether there’s an audible heartbeat, and a
written and verbal description of whether the pregnancy is viable. If
the pregnancy is not viable, doctors would be required to tell patients
that a miscarriage is likely even if the patient doesn’t get an
abortion.

The most extensive research has
found that, barring rare complications, induced abortions are not linked to the medical risks listed in the bill.

Regarding infertility, the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists cited four studies, concluding that, “Published studies strongly suggest that infertility is not a
consequence of uncomplicated induced abortion. There are small
discrepancies among studies, but none of these studies was of
sufficient power to detect a small association."

The American Cancer Society has a page on its website
dedicated to abortion and breast cancer, which claims, “The largest, and probably the most
reliable, study on this topic was done during the 1990s in Denmark, a
country with very detailed medical records on all its citizens. … After
adjusting for known breast cancer risk factors, the researchers found
that induced abortion(s) had no overall effect on the risk of breast
cancer. The size of this study and the manner in which it was done
provide good evidence that induced abortion does not affect a woman’s
risk of developing breast cancer.”

House Bill 200 must first work through committee before it
gets a full vote from the House. Its chances of passing the 99-person chamber are so far
are unclear.

The bill was introduced by State Rep. Ron Hood, a Republican from Ashville, and co-sponsored by 34 of his Republican colleagues. Among them are several state representatives from the Cincinnati area: Louis Terhar, Louis Blessing, Ron Maag, Wes Retherford and Peter Stautberg.

Both chambers of the General Assembly recently passed
budget bills that include anti-abortion policies. On April 18, the
Republican-controlled Ohio House passed a budget bill that defunds Planned Parenthood and funds pro-abstinence, anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.

On June 6, the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate passed another budget bill that includes the Ohio House measures. The Ohio Senate also added provisions
that ban abortion clinics from establishing transfer agreements with
public hospitals and allow the state health director to shut down
abortion clinics that don’t have transfer agreements.

Both chambers are currently reconciling their budget bills
through a conference committee, which should produce a final version of
the budget for the governor. Gov. John Kasich must approve a budget
before a June 30 deadline.

Correction: This story originally said there are no exceptions for medical emergencies, but there is an exception for medical emergencies in the bill. The story has been updated and corrected.

Union Township Rep. John Becker backs abortion ban for most insurance and Medicaid

Union Township Rep. John Becker doesn't exactly have a history of standing up for causes CityBeat agrees with, and this week we're seeing more of the same.

He's the voice behind another Republican-backed bill introduced Nov. 14, that, if passed, would introduce regulations that would ban most public and private health insurance policies, including Medicaid, from covering abortion care and several common methods of contraception.According to a press release from NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, H.B. 351 would manipulate language on the Ohio Revised Code to redefine abortion services and restrict public hospitals from performing abortions — even on women whose lives are at risk due to the pregnancy or who have been victims of rape.

NARAL Executive Director Kellie Copeland commented, "Imagine
facing a life-threatening pregnancy complication and being told that
your insurance won’t cover the procedure because Ohio politicians banned
that coverage.
Imagine becoming pregnant as the result of a rape, and having to cover
the cost of an abortion out of pocket because this bill became law. It’s
unthinkable."

Also introduced on Wednesday to U.S. Congress was the Women's Health Protection Act, what supporters are calling a historic pro-choice bill that would outlaw states' authority to limit women's reproductive rights by prohibiting states from passing Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws, which impose extra regulations on doctors who operate in medical practices that perform abortions. The bill, which will likely face harsh odds in the U.S.'s conservative-dominated House, wouldn't completely diminish states' existing anti-abortion laws, although it require judges to be more carefully reconsider cases that challenge the legality of already-existing laws. Becker's bill has yet to be assigned to a committee. Here's the bill in full.

As one of the self-proclaimed "most conservative" members of his party, he's also a cosponsor of the state's Heartbeat Bill and once called the proposal of a needle-exchange program, which could reduce the spread of infectious bloodborne diseases like HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, the product of a "liberal media agenda."

In August, Becker introduced a bill that would kick a large chunk of pregnant women and low-income parents off of Medicaid by grossly lowering the entry eligibility.

Becker also recently lobbied for the impeachment of the judge who
allowed the state to legally recognize the marriage of Jim Obergefell
and his 20-year partner, John Arthur, who recently passed away from Lou Gehrig's disease, for his decision.

States passed more abortion restrictions in past three years than previous decade

Ohio was among various states in the nation that passed more
abortion restrictions between 2011 and 2013 than the entire previous
decade, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Between 2011 and 2013, states passed 205 new restrictions
on abortion. Between 2001 and 2010, states passed only 189 new
restrictions.

The trend is unsurprising for Ohio, which the Guttmacher
Institute says has been “hostile to abortion” since 2000, but the
timeline shows a clear shift in state policies around the nation since
the tea party rose to national prominence in 2010.

Among other restrictions, one measure forces doctors to
perform an external ultrasound on a woman seeking an abortion and tell
her if a heartbeat is detected and the statistical probability of the
fetus making it to birth.

Ohio and Oklahoma were also the only states in 2013 to
pass restrictions on federal funding for family planning providers, the
Guttmacher Institute claims.

Abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, insist they don’t use
public funds for abortions, instead funding the procedure with
the help of private contributions.

“Members of the House who have issues with Planned Parenthood have only issues with the abortion services,” Michael Dittoe, spokesperson for Ohio House Republicans, told CityBeat last June. “The rest of what Planned Parenthood provides, I imagine they have no issue with whatsoever.”

Ohio Democrats, particularly gubernatorial candidate Ed
FitzGerald, have made their opposition to the anti-abortion measures
part of their campaigns to unseat Gov. John Kasich and other Ohio
Republicans who hold top executive positions in the state. But given the Guttmacher Institute’s timeline, reversing
the trend could require a radical shift in the state government of the
past 14 years.

A tea party-backed pension amendment yesterday cleared the hurdle of 7,443 petition signatures required to appear on the November ballot. Cincinnati
for Pension Reform, the group behind the amendment, had previously paid
nearly $70,000 to petitioners to gather signatures. The amendment
would privatize pension plans so the city and city employees hired after
January 2014 would contribute to individual retirement accounts that
the employee would then manage by independently selecting investments.
That’s a shift from the current system in which the city pools pension
funds and manages the investments through an independent board. But
unlike private-sector employees, city workers might not qualify for
Social Security, which means they’ll lack the safety net that typically
comes with risky 401k-style plans. If workers do qualify for Social
Security, the city would have to pay into the federal entitlement
program, which would cost the city more money, according to an Aug. 5
report from the city administration.

Cincinnati is cutting ties with SoMoLend,
the local startup that had previously partnered with the city to
connect small businesses and startups with $400,000 in loans. SoMoLend
has been accused of fraud by the Ohio Division of Securities, which says
the local company exaggerated its performance and financial figures
and lacked the proper licenses to operate as a peer-to-peer lending
business. The Division of Securities won’t issue a final order until
after a hearing in October. SoMoLend’s specialty is using crowdfunding
tactics to connect small businesses and startups with lenders.

The Ohio Senate will today hear testimony
from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio about projections that show
the state could save money if it takes up the Medicaid expansion. As
part of Obamacare, states are asked to expand their Medicaid programs to
include anyone at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level. In
return, the federal government will pay for the expansion for the first
three years and wind down to paying 90 percent of the costs after that.
The Health Policy Institute previously estimated the expansion would
save Ohio roughly $1.8 billion and insure nearly half a million Ohioans in the
next decade.

Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan is touting Cincinnati Safe Student Housing,
a website that allows university students to pick from housing options
that passed a free fire inspection. The website was unanimously approved
by City Council following several university students’ deaths to fires,
which council members argue could have been prevented with stronger
standards.

The new owner of the former Terrace Plaza Hotel says he will reopen the building as a hotel.
Alan Friedberg, managing principal of the company that bought the
building earlier this year, says the process of bringing back the
building will take a lot of time and work, considering it’s now been
vacant for three years.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown was in Cincinnati yesterday to
call on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to expedite processing
on benefit claims. The VA currently has a backlog of 500,000 veterans,
according to a press release from Brown’s office.

Introducing Elon Musk’s Hyperloop,
a proposal for a railway system that would use high-pressure tubes to
shoot passengers around the country. It’s estimated traveling from Los
Angeles to San Francisco, which normally takes about five and a half
hours, would only take 30 minutes in the tubes.

Civil liberties group says rules violate state constitution

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio on
Wednesday announced it is suing the state of Ohio over anti-abortion
restrictions enacted as part of the 2014-2015 state budget.

“To put it simply, none of these amendments have any place
in the state budget bill,” said Susan Scheutzow, ACLU cooperating
attorney and partner at the law firm of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, in
a statement. “This massive bill is not intended to deal with new
policy; the single subject of the budget should be the appropriation of
funds for existing government programs or obligations.”

The lawsuit claims the restrictions violate the Ohio
Constitution’s “single subject” rule, which requires each individual law keep to a single subject to avoid complexity and hidden language. In
the case of the budget, the ACLU argues that the law shouldn’t go beyond
appropriating state funds and tax collection.

The three anti-abortion budget amendments in question ban
public hospitals and abortion clinics from making transfer agreements
that are required to keep clinics open; order clinics to take
government-outlined steps, including showing a patient if a fetal
heartbeat is detected, before carrying out an abortion procedure; and
create a new “parenting and pregnancy” program that shifts state funds
into private organizations that are barred from mentioning abortion
services.

“The first two amendments have nothing at all to do with
budget appropriations,” said Jessie Hill, ACLU cooperating attorney and
professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, in a
statement. “The third is also unconstitutional because it creates and
funds an entirely new government program, something that requires
stand-alone legislation.”

The ACLU says the lawsuit is about promoting good
government that follows the rules, regardless of where any individual
stands on the issue of abortion.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Preterm, a women’s
health clinic in Cleveland that provides contraception, family planning
and abortion services.

One anti-abortion restriction that’s not being sued over:
The state budget effectively defunded clinics like Planned Parenthood by
deeming their non-abortion services less competitive.

Republican legislators and Gov. John Kasich approved the
anti-abortion restrictions with the state budget in June. But Democratic
critics say the new rules harshly restrict access to legal abortions
protected by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Republican state legislators are using the two-year state
budget to pass sweeping anti-abortion measures — and they’re proud to
admit it.

The goal is “to maintain the sanctity of human life,” says Michael Dittoe, spokesperson for Ohio House Republicans.

Most recently, the House-Senate conference committee,
which put the final touches to the state budget, tacked on an amendment that requires doctors to perform an external ultrasound on a
woman seeking an abortion and inform the woman if a heartbeat is
detected. The doctor would also be required to explain the statistical
probability of the woman carrying the fetus to birth.

The amendment came in addition to other anti-abortion measures in the budget that would reprioritize family services
funding to effectively defund Planned Parenthood, increase
funding for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers and impose
regulations that the state health director could use to shut down
abortion clinics.

Under the regulations, abortion clinics would be unable to
set patient transfer agreements with public hospitals, and established
agreements could be revoked by the state health director. At the same
time, if a clinic doesn’t have a transfer agreement in place, the state
health director could shut it down with no further cause.

The rules allow abortion clinics to set agreements with
private hospitals, but abortion rights advocates argue that’s more
difficult because private hospitals tend to be religious.

Abortion rights advocates are protesting the measures, labeling them an attack on women’s rights.

“If the governor and members of the Ohio General Assembly
want to practice medicine, they should go to medical school,” said
Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, in a
statement. “We urge Gov. (John) Kasich to veto these dangerous
provisions from the budget. Party politics has no place in a woman’s
private health care decision. The time is now to stand up and lead, not
in the interests of his party, but in the interests of the women and
families he has been elected to lead.”

Dittoe insists Republicans are not attacking women with
the measures: “The women in our caucus have introduced some of these
proposals. It’s hard to say it’s a ‘war on women’ when you have women
actually introducing the legislation. It’s certainly not about an attack
on women; it’s about protecting human life.”

Abortion rights supporters rallied today in Columbus in a
last-minute stand, calling on Kasich to line-item veto the measures — a
move that would keep the rest of the budget in place but nullify the
anti-abortion provisions.

Kasich has so far declined to clarify whether he will veto
the anti-abortion measures, instead punting multiple reporters’
questions on the issue.

Much of the debate has focused on Planned Parenthood,
which provides abortion services, sexually transmitted infection and
cancer screening, pregnancy tests, birth control and various other
health care services for men and women.

Supporters point out no public funds go to abortion
services, which are entirely funded through private donations. Public
funds are instead spent on Planned Parenthood’s other services.

Dittoe says that Republicans still take issue with the
abortion services, and it’s the sole reason Planned Parenthood is losing
funding.

“Members of the House who have issues with Planned
Parenthood have only issues with the abortion services,” he says. “The
rest of what Planned Parenthood provides, I imagine they have no issue
with whatsoever.”

About 15 percent of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio’s budget comes from the family planning grants that are being reworked. Not all of that money is allocated by the state government; a bulk is also set by the federal government.

The anti-abortion changes will go into effect with the $62
billion state budget for fiscal years 2014 and 2015. Both chambers of the Republican-controlled General
Assembly passed the budget today, and Kasich is expected to
sign the bill into law this weekend.